I have read several books recently that together led me to the same conclusion about the moral implications of dropping the bombs on Japan. Nuclear War - Annie Jacobsen. The Devil Reached Toward the Sky - Garrett Graff. Hiroshima - M.G. Sheftall. The last one in particular focuses on the aftermath of the bomb dropping and it is a book that is going to be with me for a long time.
Trump has, to the delight of Putin and Xi, given them the green light for another world war. Which will be triggered when China moves on Taiwan. By effectively ending the rest of NATO's trust in the US, he has isolated us; now it's our 350 million against China's 1,400 million. The 500 million of non-US NATO will sit this Big One out.
If Trump pulls a Chamberlain and gifts China Taiwan, our remaining allies in Asia will abandon us too, and join China against us.
This is the worst case scenario. That can be hopefully avoided.
Trump is the red light. Consolidated world media opinion is Putin's and Xi's except that's a bad optic so the put it on Trump. Their green light is their green light. Casting Trump as the villian enables them to receive Socialist blessings to drop the bomb as though they bomb whoever they wanted to if there were no Trump. Of course if you don't think so that's your choice. Overall it makes no difference because it's inevitable someone will do a stupid and it won't be Trump.
I happen to ascribe to the belief that he is an FSB (KGB) intelligence operative, and has been since the 1990's or earlier. That he's not the "Useful Idiot" that MSM paint him as when he does stupid things--like cutting off 99% of all aid to Ukraine, or his import taxation policy--but rather fully under the control of a hostile foreign intelligence service. He's a traitor.
Canada is British. Our King is useless,but by rights if Trump makes a move on Canada we should send out troops,all 50 of them and give him a good hiding
Thanks for this great article on the possibility of nuclear war. I think people forget how in the middle of the cold war, Russia had just as many nuclear warheads or more to destroy life on earth and they were the Socialist policeman protector of all the Socialist countries from being destroyed. And now China has the most nuclear power of all. I think the Canadian prime minister is too narrowly focused on America as a threat when the Russia, China, Pakistan and even Iran are much much larger threats. The reason is because America does not verbally threaten other nations like Putin threatens to destroy The Ukraine, or Iran threatens to destroy Israel or China threatens to destroy Formosa or Nationalist China or Pakistan threatens it will destroy India. The leftist Socialist political games playbook always portrays Russia, China, Iran and even Hamas as much too rational and peace-loving to ever destroy our planet and that America with Trump is totally irrational and will do it in a split second. How can anyone ignore the constant irrationality of Russia, China, Iran and even Hamas, (if it were gifted atomic weapons by it's supporters who always demand that everyone believe that totally irrational Trump is a much larger nuclear threat than all the others even if considered all together will ever be). And plus, with the deep polarization there is the feeling among leftists that if corrupt democracy could be totally erased by nuclear weapons, that would be a good thing even if our planet was totally destroyed. And there are religions who believe that it really doesn't matter who starts dropping nuclear bombs, that the End is totally inevitable that we will have to start all over in a new stone age. One more thing is that with the upsurge of antisemitism, there are some who believe that is the beginning of the end of the world. Long ago Rome tried to erase all Jewish people but instead of destroying them, destroyed itself. So yes, worry that there will be nuclear war but no need to worry that America will drop nuclear weapons first. Of course if people feel the leaders of the Left, Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan and Hamas are rational peace-loving folks like the popular world media fiction, than that's their choice.
Maybe, but please remember no Jewish person ever asked to be hated. It only became all about Israel when irrational antisemitic people demanded that all Jewish people be hated and further demand that Israel be destroyed.
Larry, I took away from Carney's speech that America is no longer exceptional when it comes to world affairs. We are no longer serve as guardrails bit are just a regular world power competing. And we need to acknowledge the general danger of nukes in so many hands. This is a bigger issue than one country or one man.
Agree. I think you and Eleanor, especially in her new book, want, everyone, to look at the bigger picture, the bigger huge overriding issue and consider it from any one nation's viewpoint no matter which one or any person's viewpoint no matter who they but as a single resident of and on planet earth. We are lucky that Eleanor was and remains so close to this as it relates to England as it simultaneously relates to all nations and all people!
A friend of mine is from Los Alamos and his father was a scientist there. A little-known fact is that a lot of the scientists involved in designing the bomb all went together to buy a vast ranch; I got to visit it once (his dad bought a share in it) and see where various famous scientists had their cabins. My friend has all kinds of odds and ends that he plucked from the ruins of the cabins of various famous scientists.
While I was out there, I visited the museums. Highly recommend — there’s a lot to see and you should take your family.
I need to write a whole thing about this.
Los Alamos is an interesting place — very focused on achievement and overflowing with extremely smart people. Kids who would be considered exceptional in other places are average there. My friend feels he hasn’t accomplished enough even though he has a master’s in engineering and a whole shelf of patents.
The feeling among people from Los Alamos about the bomb is strikingly more positive than elsewhere.
Of course, and understandable. The bomb and science behind it was their entire raison d’etre. And in such an isolated place, where that type of achievement carried high social value, I can imagine the bubble became a pressure cooker. “The exceptional were average” (paraphrase ) explains a lot.
Great dialogue, Michelle and Jane. The creation of the atomic bomb was a great scientific achievement. It does make sense that there's home town pride.
It was estimated that 100,000 American lives were saved by dropping the two bombs. Note two because the first one was not enough for Hirohito to surrender. His power went unchecked and he would have continued the war until every last Japanese citizen was dead. The Japanese were the first to use Kamakaze pilots— an early version of the jihadi suicide bomber. Reports from American soldiers were that they’d rather be captured by the Nazis than the Japanese. Dropping the bomb—What a tough decision when one has such an enemy and citizens are involved.
I won’t watch Carney or any other Jew hater. He’s done nothing to protect his Jewish citizens yet he talks about post WWII?
Carissa, definitely a difficult decision. In hindsight I wish we had tried to demonstrate it even if that would not have convinced the Japanese to surrender. If I don't like Carney's stance on Israel I can still like his speech, which had nothing to do specifically with Israel.
Hiroshima was tragically necessary. I'm not so sure about Nagasaki. That city was obliterated just three days after the first attack. Was that enough time for the Japanese leadership to make the most monumental decision of the war? Pace Fussell and the blood paid by delay, couldn't they have given Hirohito a few more days and promised him more Hiroshimas if he refused or dallied?
It's arguable that it was Nagasaki, and not Hiroshima, that was the monstrous crime.
You should also have mentioned that NATO died last week.. Europe can no longer count on the USA (nor should the US count on Europe).. Trump’s comments that Europe did not actively participate in Afghanistan was deeply insulting and only made worst by the lack of support from Congress towards their fellow allies.. the US’s vast deficits are financed by the rest of the world who hold our debt.. America is living on borrowed times.
Our British soldiers were right on the front lines engaging with Taliban fighters and HELPING villagers. The USA troops were in the camps snacking on burgers. Next time the USA tells our PM to send our troops the whole of Britain will cry No in outrage.
As a middle schooler during the Cold War, I read Hiroshima many times. I recognized a masterpiece of precision, restraint and compassion in which tiny details convey horror beyond imagining. I had forgotten the flowers of a kimono imprinted on the skin. It’s too easy to say that everyone should read this surprisingly slender book, so I’ll just say it’s time for me to read it again.
I have been necessarily away from all external news, but I know things have been heating up all around. We have to be in trust of ourselves and the universe and know that the scary stuff is coming up to be released. May humanity be safe. May we truly evolve. Necessarily.
the last time Neptune (Poseidon) entered the beginning of the zodiacal cosmic clock cycle (Aries) was April 13, 1861. It is about to enter Aries in two days, on January 26, 2026. and February 20th
will bring us the Saturn (chronos) Neptune conjunction at the start of the milky solar cycle we live in.
nothing will be the same.
the cosmic clock is always the boss, and after her the outer planets. math, dynamics, vibrations, geometry, energy into form. synchronization of evolution.
Wonderful piece! I worry about how younger people don’t remember what it was like to truly fear nuclear war. It seems like politics are a cosplaying game for many. But with real world effects. Stay safe and warm in the snow ❄️!
Never forget that Democracy demands a sword. Best never used, but nearby just in case. Trump has not forgotten that. Europe and Canada both appear to have let it slip their minds. While his decorum is less than (an understatement), his outcomes for the longevity of America and the western way of life (including Europe!) are difficult to argue with. In fact, nobody else is proposing an alternative.
The alternative is living in the USA with dignity. Trump only serves himself. And who exactly threatens the US or Canada or Europe? Russia can barely hang on to its conquered Ukrainian provinces.. china only cares about Taiwan.. only the US seems convinced there is this great external threat to our existence that requires neutralizing.. enlighten us David since you goose step with your Führer Trump..
I'm not feeling speak softly and carry a big stock vibes from this president. But my point is beyond a man or even a country. It's about complacency regarding nuclear weapons risk.
I think I recounted in one of my posts a conversation I add with a senior member of America's security services in which he told me, "Say what you want about mutually assured destruction, but it prevented war with Russia." But mutually assured destruction is a knife-edge strategy that assumes a level of sanity in all the players. Putin and Xi might be loathsome dictators but both are sane in the context of this game...and you are talking about game theory. The question now becomes, is Trump? And if he is not, will subordinates prevent him from going outside the rules? These are both scary questions to be sure, but Trump, because he has repeatedly demonstrated that he is a coward, the flip side of bully, we are safer from that prospect than we might have been. In terms of using the first and second ones, alas, if they had not been employed, the rules would not have been set so restrictively, the same as was true for poison gas in World War I. In both cases, demonstrations of the horrible effects of these weapons would almost certainly not have been sufficient. We are, after all, a profoundly flawed species.
Larry, I've wondered about whether the horror of the two bombs makes us safer or not. I can argue both sides. In any case, one of our flaws is to forget lessons learned, especially after 80 years.
They have definitely made us safer...given that this sort of weaponry was going to be discovered sooner or later by somebody...and somebody was going to use it. If history has taught us anything, it is that. And, ah yes, forgetting the lessons learned. That assumes that the lessons...the real lessons...were ever learned in the first place. History also casts some serious doubt on that assumption.
I'm in the middle of listening to The Maniac/B. Labatut. John von Neumann is responsible for developing game theory (along with being a key figure in the Manhattan project and the development of computer technology) which is the conceptual foundation for MAD. The assumptions for game theory are rational players who are diametrically opposed. As DR notes, we're still around more due to God's will and luck than to MAD's having any conceptual soundness. Game theory (also the foundation for Quantitative Economics) has been disproven in its main assumption of humans being rational players by the economic behaviorists. Even if MAD were to be correct, it would not be valid today as Trump is not a rational player. The 21st C First World, all things considered, has it pretty good, but so did Europe prior to WWI and it is still difficult to explain how that began when all the main players really did not want to go to war. DR has good reason to worry; I'm hoping the billionaires at some point will do as the underworld did in M (the Fritz Lang film)- decide Trump is a problem and get rid of him.
Why did WW1 really start? If the inexorable domino slide of treaties is not the real reason. Well a guy called Lord Alfred Milner had a lot to do with it.
The cascade of treaties is one. Britain seems to be pretty far down on the cascade. Can’t comment knowledgeably on Lord Milner. Bottom line- catastrophic event with a complex series of decisions made under incompetent systems- particularly the Austrians, Russians and Ottomans and with the main beneficiary being the US.
Thanks Salvador. A.J.P. Taylor has a brilliant essay about the effect of mobilization by rail of the huge 1914 armies. If one country mobilized, others had to. that "technology" of mobilization was a decisive reason WW 1 started.
It's too bad that War by Timetable is not available in paperback. The logistics of mobilization was cited as a factor in some of the readings I've done. It still is only one ingredient, however. WWII has been covered in all its aspects much more than WWI; but its causes and consequences make it as worthy of inquiry.
A glance at the Wiki on Milner shows a racist and an imperialist and someone who had a hand in British war management (not by any means stellar as evidenced by the Lions led by Donkeys assessment). Not sure how much time I want to spend with this guy. Any books you recommend?
To start with ; Hidden History -The Secret Origins of the First World War by Gerry Docherty & Jim Macgregor. In this there is an extensive bibliography of further published books plus writings published in newspapers,magazines and journals. Plus documents in National Archives and private letters where these survive in collections. The whole strength of LORD ALFRED MILNER is and was in his own time his almost complete invisibility. His colleague and co-worker Cecil Rhodes got and gets all the limelight of course.
I have read several books recently that together led me to the same conclusion about the moral implications of dropping the bombs on Japan. Nuclear War - Annie Jacobsen. The Devil Reached Toward the Sky - Garrett Graff. Hiroshima - M.G. Sheftall. The last one in particular focuses on the aftermath of the bomb dropping and it is a book that is going to be with me for a long time.
Read a book too on the fire bombings of German cities.. equally haunting
Dresden. Phosphorus. A note from Churchill to Bomber Command to roast the refugees.
Thanks Chelsey. I understand the rationale at the time and the decision. But in hindsight I wish America had tried to demonstrate it first.
Trump has, to the delight of Putin and Xi, given them the green light for another world war. Which will be triggered when China moves on Taiwan. By effectively ending the rest of NATO's trust in the US, he has isolated us; now it's our 350 million against China's 1,400 million. The 500 million of non-US NATO will sit this Big One out.
If Trump pulls a Chamberlain and gifts China Taiwan, our remaining allies in Asia will abandon us too, and join China against us.
This is the worst case scenario. That can be hopefully avoided.
Trump is the red light. Consolidated world media opinion is Putin's and Xi's except that's a bad optic so the put it on Trump. Their green light is their green light. Casting Trump as the villian enables them to receive Socialist blessings to drop the bomb as though they bomb whoever they wanted to if there were no Trump. Of course if you don't think so that's your choice. Overall it makes no difference because it's inevitable someone will do a stupid and it won't be Trump.
It's not hard to cast Trump as the villain because the man is a piece of shit.
I happen to ascribe to the belief that he is an FSB (KGB) intelligence operative, and has been since the 1990's or earlier. That he's not the "Useful Idiot" that MSM paint him as when he does stupid things--like cutting off 99% of all aid to Ukraine, or his import taxation policy--but rather fully under the control of a hostile foreign intelligence service. He's a traitor.
Canada is British. Our King is useless,but by rights if Trump makes a move on Canada we should send out troops,all 50 of them and give him a good hiding
It could be anyone or anything.
David,
Thanks for this great article on the possibility of nuclear war. I think people forget how in the middle of the cold war, Russia had just as many nuclear warheads or more to destroy life on earth and they were the Socialist policeman protector of all the Socialist countries from being destroyed. And now China has the most nuclear power of all. I think the Canadian prime minister is too narrowly focused on America as a threat when the Russia, China, Pakistan and even Iran are much much larger threats. The reason is because America does not verbally threaten other nations like Putin threatens to destroy The Ukraine, or Iran threatens to destroy Israel or China threatens to destroy Formosa or Nationalist China or Pakistan threatens it will destroy India. The leftist Socialist political games playbook always portrays Russia, China, Iran and even Hamas as much too rational and peace-loving to ever destroy our planet and that America with Trump is totally irrational and will do it in a split second. How can anyone ignore the constant irrationality of Russia, China, Iran and even Hamas, (if it were gifted atomic weapons by it's supporters who always demand that everyone believe that totally irrational Trump is a much larger nuclear threat than all the others even if considered all together will ever be). And plus, with the deep polarization there is the feeling among leftists that if corrupt democracy could be totally erased by nuclear weapons, that would be a good thing even if our planet was totally destroyed. And there are religions who believe that it really doesn't matter who starts dropping nuclear bombs, that the End is totally inevitable that we will have to start all over in a new stone age. One more thing is that with the upsurge of antisemitism, there are some who believe that is the beginning of the end of the world. Long ago Rome tried to erase all Jewish people but instead of destroying them, destroyed itself. So yes, worry that there will be nuclear war but no need to worry that America will drop nuclear weapons first. Of course if people feel the leaders of the Left, Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan and Hamas are rational peace-loving folks like the popular world media fiction, than that's their choice.
Everything is always about Israel isnt it.
Maybe, but please remember no Jewish person ever asked to be hated. It only became all about Israel when irrational antisemitic people demanded that all Jewish people be hated and further demand that Israel be destroyed.
In Britain everybody hates Trump now. Even the few who didn't before
Larry, I took away from Carney's speech that America is no longer exceptional when it comes to world affairs. We are no longer serve as guardrails bit are just a regular world power competing. And we need to acknowledge the general danger of nukes in so many hands. This is a bigger issue than one country or one man.
Agree. I think you and Eleanor, especially in her new book, want, everyone, to look at the bigger picture, the bigger huge overriding issue and consider it from any one nation's viewpoint no matter which one or any person's viewpoint no matter who they but as a single resident of and on planet earth. We are lucky that Eleanor was and remains so close to this as it relates to England as it simultaneously relates to all nations and all people!
A friend of mine is from Los Alamos and his father was a scientist there. A little-known fact is that a lot of the scientists involved in designing the bomb all went together to buy a vast ranch; I got to visit it once (his dad bought a share in it) and see where various famous scientists had their cabins. My friend has all kinds of odds and ends that he plucked from the ruins of the cabins of various famous scientists.
While I was out there, I visited the museums. Highly recommend — there’s a lot to see and you should take your family.
I need to write a whole thing about this.
Los Alamos is an interesting place — very focused on achievement and overflowing with extremely smart people. Kids who would be considered exceptional in other places are average there. My friend feels he hasn’t accomplished enough even though he has a master’s in engineering and a whole shelf of patents.
The feeling among people from Los Alamos about the bomb is strikingly more positive than elsewhere.
Of course, and understandable. The bomb and science behind it was their entire raison d’etre. And in such an isolated place, where that type of achievement carried high social value, I can imagine the bubble became a pressure cooker. “The exceptional were average” (paraphrase ) explains a lot.
It’s not surprising that they would need to feel they were a part of ending WW2, not endangering the world.
Totally agree. Interesting psychology, isn't it? And scary.
Great dialogue, Michelle and Jane. The creation of the atomic bomb was a great scientific achievement. It does make sense that there's home town pride.
"So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide."--John Lewis
Amen!
It was estimated that 100,000 American lives were saved by dropping the two bombs. Note two because the first one was not enough for Hirohito to surrender. His power went unchecked and he would have continued the war until every last Japanese citizen was dead. The Japanese were the first to use Kamakaze pilots— an early version of the jihadi suicide bomber. Reports from American soldiers were that they’d rather be captured by the Nazis than the Japanese. Dropping the bomb—What a tough decision when one has such an enemy and citizens are involved.
I won’t watch Carney or any other Jew hater. He’s done nothing to protect his Jewish citizens yet he talks about post WWII?
Always about the jews..
So why did the USA military industrial complex kill twice that number of GIs 20 years later in Vietnam.
Carissa, definitely a difficult decision. In hindsight I wish we had tried to demonstrate it even if that would not have convinced the Japanese to surrender. If I don't like Carney's stance on Israel I can still like his speech, which had nothing to do specifically with Israel.
Hiroshima was tragically necessary. I'm not so sure about Nagasaki. That city was obliterated just three days after the first attack. Was that enough time for the Japanese leadership to make the most monumental decision of the war? Pace Fussell and the blood paid by delay, couldn't they have given Hirohito a few more days and promised him more Hiroshimas if he refused or dallied?
It's arguable that it was Nagasaki, and not Hiroshima, that was the monstrous crime.
That’s an interesting perspective.
You should also have mentioned that NATO died last week.. Europe can no longer count on the USA (nor should the US count on Europe).. Trump’s comments that Europe did not actively participate in Afghanistan was deeply insulting and only made worst by the lack of support from Congress towards their fellow allies.. the US’s vast deficits are financed by the rest of the world who hold our debt.. America is living on borrowed times.
And borrowed money. Not a good combination.
Our British soldiers were right on the front lines engaging with Taliban fighters and HELPING villagers. The USA troops were in the camps snacking on burgers. Next time the USA tells our PM to send our troops the whole of Britain will cry No in outrage.
You may be right about NATO.
As a middle schooler during the Cold War, I read Hiroshima many times. I recognized a masterpiece of precision, restraint and compassion in which tiny details convey horror beyond imagining. I had forgotten the flowers of a kimono imprinted on the skin. It’s too easy to say that everyone should read this surprisingly slender book, so I’ll just say it’s time for me to read it again.
There’s a lesson in that recollection that needs revisiting
His speech was the best one at Davos!! I’m so grateful he stood up and argued for a new world order.
Agreed Elle.
I have been necessarily away from all external news, but I know things have been heating up all around. We have to be in trust of ourselves and the universe and know that the scary stuff is coming up to be released. May humanity be safe. May we truly evolve. Necessarily.
the last time Neptune (Poseidon) entered the beginning of the zodiacal cosmic clock cycle (Aries) was April 13, 1861. It is about to enter Aries in two days, on January 26, 2026. and February 20th
will bring us the Saturn (chronos) Neptune conjunction at the start of the milky solar cycle we live in.
nothing will be the same.
the cosmic clock is always the boss, and after her the outer planets. math, dynamics, vibrations, geometry, energy into form. synchronization of evolution.
not human time. universal time.
Wonderful piece! I worry about how younger people don’t remember what it was like to truly fear nuclear war. It seems like politics are a cosplaying game for many. But with real world effects. Stay safe and warm in the snow ❄️!
Thanks April. Wishing you warmth as well.
Supposed to get a foot here. Schools closed at least on Monday. Really hoping we are back on Tuesday!
Never forget that Democracy demands a sword. Best never used, but nearby just in case. Trump has not forgotten that. Europe and Canada both appear to have let it slip their minds. While his decorum is less than (an understatement), his outcomes for the longevity of America and the western way of life (including Europe!) are difficult to argue with. In fact, nobody else is proposing an alternative.
The alternative is living in the USA with dignity. Trump only serves himself. And who exactly threatens the US or Canada or Europe? Russia can barely hang on to its conquered Ukrainian provinces.. china only cares about Taiwan.. only the US seems convinced there is this great external threat to our existence that requires neutralizing.. enlighten us David since you goose step with your Führer Trump..
If Trump makes a move on Canada we,the British should send our troops to bloody his nose because Canada is British
I'm not feeling speak softly and carry a big stock vibes from this president. But my point is beyond a man or even a country. It's about complacency regarding nuclear weapons risk.
I think I recounted in one of my posts a conversation I add with a senior member of America's security services in which he told me, "Say what you want about mutually assured destruction, but it prevented war with Russia." But mutually assured destruction is a knife-edge strategy that assumes a level of sanity in all the players. Putin and Xi might be loathsome dictators but both are sane in the context of this game...and you are talking about game theory. The question now becomes, is Trump? And if he is not, will subordinates prevent him from going outside the rules? These are both scary questions to be sure, but Trump, because he has repeatedly demonstrated that he is a coward, the flip side of bully, we are safer from that prospect than we might have been. In terms of using the first and second ones, alas, if they had not been employed, the rules would not have been set so restrictively, the same as was true for poison gas in World War I. In both cases, demonstrations of the horrible effects of these weapons would almost certainly not have been sufficient. We are, after all, a profoundly flawed species.
Larry, I've wondered about whether the horror of the two bombs makes us safer or not. I can argue both sides. In any case, one of our flaws is to forget lessons learned, especially after 80 years.
They have definitely made us safer...given that this sort of weaponry was going to be discovered sooner or later by somebody...and somebody was going to use it. If history has taught us anything, it is that. And, ah yes, forgetting the lessons learned. That assumes that the lessons...the real lessons...were ever learned in the first place. History also casts some serious doubt on that assumption.
I'm in the middle of listening to The Maniac/B. Labatut. John von Neumann is responsible for developing game theory (along with being a key figure in the Manhattan project and the development of computer technology) which is the conceptual foundation for MAD. The assumptions for game theory are rational players who are diametrically opposed. As DR notes, we're still around more due to God's will and luck than to MAD's having any conceptual soundness. Game theory (also the foundation for Quantitative Economics) has been disproven in its main assumption of humans being rational players by the economic behaviorists. Even if MAD were to be correct, it would not be valid today as Trump is not a rational player. The 21st C First World, all things considered, has it pretty good, but so did Europe prior to WWI and it is still difficult to explain how that began when all the main players really did not want to go to war. DR has good reason to worry; I'm hoping the billionaires at some point will do as the underworld did in M (the Fritz Lang film)- decide Trump is a problem and get rid of him.
Why did WW1 really start? If the inexorable domino slide of treaties is not the real reason. Well a guy called Lord Alfred Milner had a lot to do with it.
The cascade of treaties is one. Britain seems to be pretty far down on the cascade. Can’t comment knowledgeably on Lord Milner. Bottom line- catastrophic event with a complex series of decisions made under incompetent systems- particularly the Austrians, Russians and Ottomans and with the main beneficiary being the US.
Thanks Salvador. A.J.P. Taylor has a brilliant essay about the effect of mobilization by rail of the huge 1914 armies. If one country mobilized, others had to. that "technology" of mobilization was a decisive reason WW 1 started.
It's too bad that War by Timetable is not available in paperback. The logistics of mobilization was cited as a factor in some of the readings I've done. It still is only one ingredient, however. WWII has been covered in all its aspects much more than WWI; but its causes and consequences make it as worthy of inquiry.
Read up on Lord Alfred Milner please. The best disguise has to be invisibility in Plain Sight.
A glance at the Wiki on Milner shows a racist and an imperialist and someone who had a hand in British war management (not by any means stellar as evidenced by the Lions led by Donkeys assessment). Not sure how much time I want to spend with this guy. Any books you recommend?
To start with ; Hidden History -The Secret Origins of the First World War by Gerry Docherty & Jim Macgregor. In this there is an extensive bibliography of further published books plus writings published in newspapers,magazines and journals. Plus documents in National Archives and private letters where these survive in collections. The whole strength of LORD ALFRED MILNER is and was in his own time his almost complete invisibility. His colleague and co-worker Cecil Rhodes got and gets all the limelight of course.
We cannot be complacent...we cannot be overwhelmed either. We have to find just one thing that we can do today.